Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Translation of Female Kingship

F. Tolhurst

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137329264
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Translation of Female Kingship provides the first feminist analysis of the part of The History of the Kings of Britain that most readers overlook: the reigns before and after Arthur's.

CHAPTER 1

RE-READING EMPRESS MATILDA AS A FEMALE KING

Given the observation of Martin B. Shichtman and Laurie A. Finke that “the historian’s knowledge of the past is always inextricably bound up with his or her investments in and anxieties about the present,” Geoffrey of Monmouth’s present—the historical moment at which King Henry I’s daughter and heir Empress Matilda was planning her military campaign to become king of England—is an appropriate starting point for gaining an understanding of the Historia regum Britanniae.¹ However, examining this book’s historical context is no more ‘neutral’ or ‘scientific’ a process than examining the book itself. In fact, as Lee Patterson has reminded his colleagues in both history and literary studies, no act of historicism “can or should be a disinterested project.”² From the perspective of feminist scholars, “the history of the history books” is a product of traditional scholarship that consists of narratives from which women are absent or in which women appear as mere footnotes to the deeds of men; consequently, in 1985, Beatrice Gottlieb asserted that “all history has to be rewritten.”³ Although the scholarship of the last quarter-century has substantially rewritten history to include women in meaningful ways, many female figures remain neglected.

A case in point is Empress Matilda who usually occupies a marginal position in modern historians’ accounts of English history, a position that demonstrates not only the impossibility of objectivity in historical study but also the way in which historians, like literary critics, tend to repeat views that are conventional within their field.⁴ Nevertheless, recent work on the period of King Stephen’s reign has made it possible to approach the historical moment at which Geoffrey composed and completed his history from a pro-Matilda angle.⁵ This chapter, therefore, offers a feminist re-reading of the career of Empress Matilda in order to establish the context within which to interpret the many female figures that appear in the non-Arthurian portion of The History of the Kings of Britain. This re-reading grants Matilda what should be her rightful place in mainstream accounts of English history by bringing the empress in from the margins of historiography and positioning her at its center. It then interprets the available information about her deeds separate from the negative female stereotypes that have traditionally shaped, and continue to shape, how historians present her. This analysis lays the groundwork for three subsequent chapters that document how Geoffrey’s secular, relatively nonjudgmental, and pro-female style of narration differs fundamentally from the way in which his fellow historians and early translators narrate the past.

It is useful to recall that Matilda’s struggle to acquire and retain the English throne that was rightfully hers is one of many examples of contested succession between 1075 and 1225. During this century and a half of instability, the English crown was inherited by the eldest surviving son of the sitting king only twice: by Richard I from his father Henry II in 1189, and by the infant Henry III from his father John (brother of Richard I) in 1216.⁶ Within the context of nearly continuous contestation of monarchial power during this period, Matilda’s assertion of her right to rule did not differ significantly from the behavior of male king-candidates during the high Middle Ages. In fact, given her circumstances, her actions were not only acceptable but also natural.

One obstacle to viewing Matilda’s pursuit of her right to rule as normative is that the two names by which historians have traditionally referred to the period from 1135 to 1154, the Anarchy and the Interregnum, entail defining Matilda as either a problem or a nonentity. The custom of referring to this period as ‘the Anarchy’ certainly reflects reality: during the civil war that they fought, Stephen and Matilda could not “exert control” over “their supposed followers”; the result was what historian Robert Bartlett characterizes as “localized gangsterism.”⁷ It is, however, a problematic descriptor because it sensationalizes both the relatively unbloody manner in which the Normans conducted warfare and the embattled but ongoing reign of King Stephen. Historian John Gillingham questions the term’s appropriateness by demonstrating that Stephen, in keeping with the practice “within the English and French parts of the Angevin Empire” that “when men of high status were defeated . . . they were in little danger of suffering bodily harm—not even when they were dealt with as traitors,” showed “restraint” when dealing with his enemies.⁸ Fellow historian David Crouch rejects the term outright as “a bad choice of name” as he defends King Stephen’s reign.⁹ Although the word ‘Anarchy’ encourages the assumption that Stephen was a weak king, it has another negative effect: it implicitly defines Matilda’s struggle for the throne to which she had the sole legitimate claim as detrimental to England, thus leading to the conclusion that Matilda never gained—and could never have gained—the throne.

The other traditional term for the period between the end of Henry I’s reign and the beginning of Henry II’s, ‘The Interregnum,’ is less sensationalist but no less problematic. It does not credit the disputed reign of King Stephen with legitimacy, yet it elides the brief reign of Empress Matilda. Therefore, it encourages both historians and general readers to ignore this female ruler and assume that, in the medieval period, only the reigns of males count. Nevertheless, the biggest obstacle to viewing Matilda’s pursuit of her inheritance as normative is not this terminology: it is the long-standing tradition among historians of presenting Empress Matilda as a footnote to, rather than a participant in, the power struggle that began with her father’s death in 1135 and ended with her son’s recognition as King Stephen’s heir in 1153. This tradition continues to foster dismissive and misogynistic attitudes toward her.

Empress Matilda, like many other women who exercised power during the medieval period, has been the victim of misogynistic attitudes that modern historians tend to express as if they are natural. Although twelfth-century historian William of Malmesbury praised Matilda despite his traditional view of gender roles, most modern historians base their assessments of her on the medieval sources that express a supposedly normative medieval attitude about the period between the death of Henry I in December 1135 and the accession of Henry II in 1154: that Matilda could never have reigned and had a personality unsuited to successful rule.¹⁰ Until recently, historians tended to dismiss Empress Matilda as a failed king-candidate who was the victim of her supposed “female gendered inadequacies” but acknowledge as kings two males whose reigns were disputed: King Edward V, a twelve-year-old boy who reigned for only three months in 1483 and—like Empress Matilda—was uncrowned, and King Stephen whose reign Matilda disputed from 1135 until Stephen recognized her son’s right to the throne in 1147.¹¹ What is ironic about modern historians’ characterizations of Matilda is that she is always wrong: she is both too feminine in her weaknesses and too masculine in her aggressive exercise of power.

The tradition of focusing on Matilda’s supposed personality flaws, evident in the work of nineteenth-century historian Mary Anne Everett Green, remains palpable in Crouch’s reference to the empress’s “customary lack of tact” and suggestion that the ongoing instability in England during Stephen’s reign was her fault: “One wonders if the sudden rash of goodwill was the cause or the result of the final departure from England of the empress.”¹² In a similarly negative spirit, Bartlett suggests that Empress Matilda’s stepmother Adeliza might have turned her stepdaughter over to King Stephen due to tension caused by “Matilda’s own haughtiness” for which she “is notorious”; in addition, he mentions the oaths of fealty made to Matilda only in order to define them as “far less effective” means of ensuring succession than the heir’s coronation.¹³

This traditional bias against Empress Matilda has prevented her from becoming a significant feature of the English historiographical landscape, a fact Crouch demonstrates by dismissing the empress as a king-candidate saying, “the alternative, Mathilda [sic], could never be a king.”¹⁴ Church historian H. R. Loyn likewise dismisses the empress, not only eliding her brief reign but also implying that, as a woman, she was incapable of performing the manly action required to gain the throne. Loyn refers to her merely as the “lady of the English or of England, domina Angliae, [who] would have needed the extra touch of brutality—the killing of Stephen—and the support of the higher clergy and Rome in order to achieve the status of queen regnant.”¹⁵ For papal historian I. S. Robinson, Matilda is a marginal figure. Despite labeling Stephen’s acquisition of the English throne as “usurpation,” he mentions Empress Matilda only in passing as having brought her claim to the throne to Pope Innocent II; in addition, by referring to her merely as Stephen’s “rival,” he confers on her claim no particular legitimacy.¹⁶

In contrast to Robinson, historian Charlotte A. Newman recognized the empress’s reign. She observes that “for almost nine months, the Empress ruled England”; nevertheless, Newman describes that period as one during which Matilda “proved that she had an ability even greater than Stephen’s to alienate supporters.”¹⁷ As Charles Beem has argued, for historians to dismiss Empress Matilda in this way strips her of “historical agency” and ignores or downplays the fact that her “contemporaries agreed that Matilda was recognized as the sole source of royal authority for several months in the year 1141.”¹⁸

Acknowledging the empress more forcefully are Beem and fellow historian Marjorie Chibnall, who have strenuously asserted Empress Matilda’s unique contribution to English history as well as recognized her as England’s first female king.¹⁹ For this reason, they participate in an ongoing feminist revision of the medieval past although they do not self-identify as feminist scholars. Working in an Anglo-American feminist spirit, Chibnall has gathered evidence of and drawn attention to Empress Matilda’s persistent and competent efforts to gain her rightful inheritance.²⁰ By documenting the role of a female historical figure that many modern historians relegate to the margins of a narrative about a seemingly unbroken line of male rulers, Chibnall suggests an alternate view of events following King Henry I’s death in 1135, one in which Matilda is an active participant in historical events and a worthy adversary of King Stephen. Beem, working in a French-feminist spirit, demonstrates that in the cases of several female English rulers—including Empress Matilda—gender roles are always constructed, always partial.²¹ His analysis of Matilda’s exercise of power facilitates reading Geoffrey of Monmouth’s historical moment, one that offered historians a unique opportunity to explore the possibility of female kingship, from a feminist perspective. Beem argues that Empress Matilda was the first woman in England to achieve the status of king as well as that she tried to build upon the foundations laid by her father, King Henry I, for the reign of a legitimate daughter. On the latter point, the Matilda-skeptic Crouch agrees: “The king had intended his only surviving legitimate child, Mathilda [sic], to succeed him.”²² Nevertheless, Beem makes a more specific argument: while her father attempted to smooth the transition from his own reign into hers by redefining and tightening the loose system of Norman royal succession, Matilda went through “a gender-bending process, drawing through time upon contemporary notions of manhood and womanhood embodied in the distinct gendered roles of kingship and queenship.”²³

Beem’s interpretation of how Empress Matilda combined male and female r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction   Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Translation of Female Kingship
• 1   Re-reading Empress Matilda as a Female King
• 2   Geoffrey‛s History as Preparation for a Female King
• 3   Undermining and Degrading Female Kingship in the First Variant and Wace‛s roman de Brut
• 4   Delegitimizing and Erasing Female Kingship in the “Epistola Warino Britoni,” the Chronica majora, and Laȝamon’s Brut
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• About the Author
• Index